Employment Act Coverage vs Italian CCNL: Who Is Protected in Each Country

A Singapore founder hiring a senior engineer at home rarely thinks about the Employment Act beyond leave and notice. The salary is well above the Part 4 thresholds, the person is a professional, and most of the terms are whatever the offer letter says. Hiring the same profile in Italy works differently. Italian protections do not fall away as salary rises. This article explains the gap.

How Singapore scales protection  

The Employment Act covers employees working under a contract of service, local and foreign, with exceptions such as seafarers, domestic workers and civil servants. Since the 2019 amendments, managers and executives are covered by the core provisions too, including annual leave, sick leave, public holidays and protection against wrongful dismissal.

The more prescriptive rules sit in Part 4: hours of work, overtime, rest days and some leave rules. According to the Ministry of Manpower, Part 4 applies only to:

• workmen (mainly manual labour) earning a basic monthly salary of S$4,500 or less; and
• non-workmen earning a basic monthly salary of S$2,600 or less.

Part 4 does not cover all managers or executives. In practice, most of the people a Singapore tech or services company hires (engineers, analysts, sales managers) are outside Part 4. Their hours and overtime are a matter of contract. For them, the Act sets a floor, but a low one.

How Italy covers almost everyone  

Italy takes the opposite starting point. Statute applies to every employee, and on top of statute sits the national collective agreement for the sector, the CCNL (contratto collettivo nazionale di lavoro). Each CCNL sets minimum pay tables by job level, working hours, overtime rates, leave, sick pay, notice and the 13th (sometimes 14th) month.

There is no general statutory minimum wage in Italy. The CCNL pay tables play that role, and employers who apply a CCNL are expected to pay at least its minimum for the job level. The Civil Code (art. 2095) groups employees into categories: workers (operai), white-collar staff (impiegati), middle managers (quadri) and executives (dirigenti). Senior staff are not taken out of the system. Executives are simply covered by a separate executive CCNL, with its own notice periods and protections.

So the Italian equivalent of your senior engineer is still covered by a collective agreement, with a pay floor, a set working week and a notice period by level.

Working hours and overtime  

Italian working time rules come from Legislative Decree 66/2003. The normal week is 40 hours, average weekly hours including overtime cannot exceed 48 over the reference period, and overtime is capped by law and by the CCNL. Overtime premiums are set by the CCNL and apply to non-executive staff whatever their salary. A well-paid middle manager in Italy can therefore be owed overtime in a way a Singapore PME on S$8,000 a month usually is not.

Executives (dirigenti) and some roles with autonomous working time are excluded from parts of the working time rules, but most hires a growing company makes are not dirigenti.

Why the CCNL matters so much  

For a Singapore reader, the closest comparison is a collective agreement in a unionised company, but applied by default to the whole sector. Choosing the right CCNL is one of the first decisions when you hire. It decides:

• the minimum gross pay for each level;
• the working week and overtime premiums;
• extra paid leave hours (ROL) on top of the statutory four weeks;
• the length of probation;
• notice periods on resignation and dismissal;
• sick pay top-ups and job protection during illness;
• whether there is a 14th month.

Common choices for international tech and services hires are the commerce and services CCNL and the metalworking CCNL. The right one depends on the business activity of the employer, not on the job title alone.

Practical differences for a Singapore manager  

Salary does not buy flexibility. In Singapore, a higher salary takes an employee out of Part 4. In Italy, a higher salary generally moves the employee up a CCNL level, with more notice and sometimes longer probation, but the same core rules.

Hours are part of the contract. “Reasonable hours as required by the business” is a common phrase in Singapore offer letters. In Italy, the contract states the working week, and regular extra hours need to be recorded and paid under the CCNL, unless the role is genuinely executive.

Job level is a legal fact. The level written in the contract must match the duties. If the employee actually does higher-level work, they can claim the higher level and its pay.

Terms improve, they do not go below. You can agree more favourable terms than the CCNL, but not worse ones. A clause that cuts leave or notice below the CCNL is ineffective.

What this means if you hire through an EOR  

An Employer of Record becomes the legal employer in Italy. It picks and applies the CCNL, sets the job level, and builds the contract and payroll around it. Your team still decides the role, the salary above the minimum and the day-to-day work.

What you should do on your side:

• describe the real duties and seniority so the level is right from the start;
• decide whether the role needs overtime, and budget for it;
• avoid treating the Italian hire as “outside the rules” because of their salary.

Compare the two systems side by side on our Italy vs Singapore page , and see how the contract is built in our guide to Italian employment contracts . For the written terms themselves, read Singapore KETs vs the Italian employment contract . To check the cost of a level and salary, use the cost calculator .

The bottom line  

Singapore protects lower-paid employees closely and leaves professionals mostly to contract. Italy protects everyone through statute and the CCNL, with senior staff on different terms rather than fewer ones. Plan the Italian hire as if every part of the relationship has a legal minimum, because it does.

Ready to plan a hire? Talk to us .

General information, not legal advice.